


Sing me a Song of a Lad that is Gone

by thelinkbetweenourhearts



Series: soulmate au [2]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Brief Casual Ableism, Character Study, Child Abuse, F/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Pre-Canon, Racism, Self-Harm, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 11:31:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5125910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelinkbetweenourhearts/pseuds/thelinkbetweenourhearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During a late night drive, Nathan thinks back on moments in his life up until he met Max.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing me a Song of a Lad that is Gone

**Author's Note:**

> this series has inspired me to write like i haven't in a long time!

Nathan's earliest memory is of his sister. He's young, small enough that his sister's hands engulf his own when she holds them. She holds on tight enough that his bones grind uncomfortably under her fingers. It won't be long before father finds them. The closet they've hidden in is large but it feels cramped. Nathan can feel the animal fear rolling off Kristine in waves.

"Nathan, I want you to promise me something. It's a game, ok?"

"Ok."

"Whenever I tell you to do something, and I say 'I mean it this time', you have to do it. Ok? You promise?"

"I promise."

"Alright." His sister takes a deep breath. "I want you to stay in this closet and don't come out until I come for you. I mean it this time."

He nods and she hugs him tight. She's shaking. She smiles at him before she leaves. Nathan can hear his father yelling. She doesn't come back for him for hours.

 ----------

Max's eyes are still glazed from sleep when she meets him in the parking lot. It's late, maybe one o clock last he checked, and it's cold. She's got her jacket on, but Nathan still puts his over her hunched shoulders. He's too hot to keep it on anyways. Max kisses his chin as he fastens it over her and he smiles.

"Where are we going?" Max yawns as he leads her into the SUV. She sinks back against the sleek leather of her seat, sighing in pleasure as the heat engulfs her skin.

She still has on her pyjams--the pyjamas he bought her a week ago--under her jacket. Nathan finds that funny and he doesn't know why.

"Nice pyjamas."

Max's grin is lopsided like her slurry speech.

"Nice  _hair,_ dork."

And Nathan loves her so much for this. It hits him fast like a punch to the face.

They've only known each other for a month and some change, thrown together by the marks some absent God wrote on their skin, and she isn't even questioning why he's called her when it's dead ass late to go for a drive.

"Are you high, Nathan?" Max asks, and he knows she doesn't approve of him using but she asks all gentle, with nothing but concern in her voice.

"I can drive if you are." She adds.

"No. Nah. I'm not. Wish I was though. Whenever it all gets to be too much, I take a drive." He explains as he pulls out of the lot.

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing. Can you just be here? You can go back to sleep if you want."

"You sure you don't want to talk about it?"

"Yes!" Max jumps at his sharp tone. Nathan softens and holds his right hand out for her to take. She squeezes tight.

 ----------

"Oh, you're a lefty." Max whispers, once Mr. Jefferson pulls up some notes for them to copy. She sounds pleasantly surprised.

Victoria sneers. Looks like she's veering up for another insult. Nathan gives her his best tired look. Nobody asked her to follow when he decided to sit with Max. Nobody asked her friends to follow. Sometimes he regrets moving. Victoria, Courtney, and Taylor can have the pack mentality of velociraptors. And as much as he cares about Victoria, he's never liked her little minions. Victoria frowns and keeps writing.

There's also Mr. Jefferson. He looks at Max like he looked at Rachel.

"I'm sorry." Nathan murmurs, more out of reflex really, and he must sound distracted because Max looks like she wants to say something but she doesn't. She gives him a weak smile when he raises his brow at her, strangely and suddenly annoyed.

He doesn't know what to do about her. It's only been a week since they met. There's a mutual care established between them that is frustrating and sweet at the same time. He gets the feeling that if it weren't for his mark, Max would hate him. It makes him sad. He's had enough of feeling like a walking obligation to last a life time.

Mr. Jefferson holds Nathan back after class. Max and Victoria linger by the door until Jefferson quietly dismisses them.

"So Nathan. How are things with your soulmate?"

It's scary how he sounds concerned and mocking at the same time.

Nathan doesn't answer. 

"She's very innocent, wouldn't you say? Don't worry. She's got a get out of jail free card for now."

Nathan just nods. He feels stupid and weak.

\----------

Kristine's first boyfriend is cool. He has a million dollar smile, he's smart and funny. He plays marathons of Super Smash Bros with Nathan without so much as a word of complaint. He dances with Kristine to her silly pop music and he charms mother with his good manners and better grades. His name is Keshaun and he is black. Father disapproves.

But Kristine is sixteen and she is willfull and shrewd and while she knows good and well how father feels, she will hear none of his insistent protests of her relationship. The house has been divided on an issue before, but never against father, never three against one. Father aims passive aggressive criticism Kristine's way and drives her to tears more often than not. Mother rebels in her own small way (turning her head from kisses on the cheek and speaking curtly), but at the end of the day, she does what father says she should. Nathan does what he has always done and tries to make himself small. On his birthday, father had decided he doesn't like Nathan being cack handed and decided to try and teach him to write with his right hand. Nathan feels dirty for being relieved that some of the pressure is off of him.

He likes Keshaun. He doesn't understand why the color of his skin--the result of genetics--matters at all. Father's never said anything bad about Nathan's friend Hayden, but it makes him wonder.

Father still tries to make Nathan write with his right hand over nightly lessons. They've been doing it for weeks, six exactly, starting with his twelfth birthday, and it never sticks. Nathan suspects it's because he is always exhausted when they do it. The sting of father's ruler is sharp against the back of his left hand. With his right, he writes in shaky letters  _People should be with their own kind._

He doesn't know why he shows the papers to Kristine.

He says, "I'm sorry."

She says, "What's this about?"

And he tells her about the late night lessons and the ruler and what he has to write. He has written worse. In the mornings, father smiles and hugs him and sends him to school with a pat on the back so he knows he's done well. He revels in the praise, but doesn't like what he did to get it. Kristine cries and hugs him.

"Don't be sorry, Nathan. And write with your left hand from now on. When father calls you for lessons, tell him you feel sick. Don't you ever write with your right hand again. I mean it this time."

She barrels out of her room and Nathan knows she's going to talk to father.

The next morning, she wears long sleeves. She breaks up with Keshaun. Father never calls Nathan for lessons again.

\----------

The girl says his words and Nathan is sure he can feels the mark on his thigh start to itch.

"--here, let me help you." She finishes, small hands reaching out for his things, expensive and delicate film equipment that's probably damaged. Everyone is watching, literally everyone. Nathan knows they want to see him flip out. Most of them hate him, and rightly so, but he is nothing if not entertaining. 

Nathan catches her chin with his hand to make her look at him. She gasps and her soft looking lips fall open. Nathan smiles.

"You already have."

Her face is blank. Then recognition sets in.

"Oh, it's you." She laughs and sounds horrified and delighted all at once.

"Oh my God, what a crappy first impression, you must think I'm--!"

He pulls her into a tight hug. She lets out a choking laugh and hugs him back. He doesn't even know her name and it feels like he's known her forever.

\----------

Nathan cuts where people's can't see. Inner arms, along his back, thighs. The cuts along his mark ground him the most. What a stupid mark. His soulmate sounds like a retarded klutz. When he cuts along the words with their childish blocky make, it hurts more than it does on any other part of his body. He watches the blood well up and feels alive.

\----------

Max wakes up when Nathan kills the engine on the side of the road. He always takes the roads along the coast. They're usually vacant at night. He warns her before he cuts on the car light.

"Will we make it back in time for class?" Max asks, breathing in sharp and stretching.

Nathan stares out at the deep blackness of the ocean and thinks of whales. "If I speed."

Max squeezes his hand. "You shouldn't have driven one-handed."

"I'm a lefty, remember?" Nathan half smiles. "I'm good."

"Are you?" Max says, just as Nathan asks,

"Can I see your mark?"

"What?" Max mumbles. She yawns and rubs the sleep out of her eyes.

"Can I see your mark? I just wanna--I feel--shit. I don't know. I don't fucking  _know_ anymore." He slams his palm into the steering wheel. The horn sounds for one quick beat.

Max reaches our and runs a hand through his hair. Her uneven nails score his scalp and tears spring to his eyes, because he doesn't deserve someone like Max. Max did nothing to deserve him.

"Show you mine if you show me yours." Max offers. Her voice is shaky but not any less confident for it.

She unhooks her seatbelt and fumbles with Nathan's jacket and then her own. Nathan's heart thrums heavily in his chest. They've told each other where their marks are, but they haven't shown each other until now.

Max rolls her shirt up and tucks it underneath her arms, exposing the lovely expanse of her upper body to him. She is small and soft and looks like a ghost in the pale light. Then she takes a breath and pulls down the hem of her pyjama pants until Nathan can see his mark, his own neat handwriting,  _you already have._ It's resting on her hip and extends along her pelvis towards the valley between her thighs. Nathan runs his finger along it and she jumps.

"Ticklish," she explains, biting her lip.

He leans down to kiss it, runs his lips along her soft warm skin. Max's breaths are quick and shallow as she runs her fingers through his scalp. When he darts his tongue out to taste her skin, she jumps again but settles quickly.

"Okay now you." Max insists after a moment, gently pulling him away.

She blushes as Nathan undoes his belt but her eyes are curious and a little warm as he lifts his hips so he can pull his jeans down. Once he's down to his boxers he takes her hand and guides it up along his right thigh.

"Oh my God." Max gasps feeling the jagged lengths of his scars. "Nathan, why didn't you tell me?"

She's whimpering in discontent the whole time and starts crying outright when he stops at his mark, trailing along the scars outlining each word.

"Why didn't you wait for me?" She hiccups. Nathan leans in to kiss her tears away.

\----------

_Soulmate?!?!_

_To: Nathan Prescott_

_From: Kristine Prescott_

_You have to tell me more about your soulmate, Little Brother! Who knows? Have you told mother and father? You have to take a photo of her and send it to me! She sounds like a real cutie! And Nathan? Don't push her away. This could be good for you. I mean it this time._

\----------

Mr. Jefferson calls Nathan just as he's about to fall asleep.

"If your soulmate keeps it up," He says by way of greeting, "Her get out of jail free card is done. And Nathan, turn that off. It's creepy." He adds.

Nathan cuts off his stereo. Along with the whalesong, his calm is gone.

"What is she doing?" He demands.

"Nothing. Everything. Being her."

"You can't, Mr. Jefferson!"

"I can. You owe me after Rachel."

"Please,  _please,_ I'll do anything."

"Great!" Jefferson answers cheerfully. "You're going to throw a party. I want Kate Marsh to be there. I want her in the Dark Room."

Nathan agrees. When he gets his razor out, he briefly considers cutting vertically instead of horizontally.

\----------

They arrive at Blackwell close to the time Max would usually be waking up.

Max kisses Nathan slow and sweet before she opens her door. Nathan grabs her wrist. She looks up at him as she twines their fingers.

"What's up?"

"I want you to make me a promise, Max."

"Anything."

"If I tell you to do something and I say 'I mean it this time', you have to do it. No matter what."

Max looks at him for a long time. "I promise."

She's worried, he can tell.

"Here, practice round. Let me take you out for lunch today." He pauses for dramatic effect. "I mean it this time."

She giggles. "Ok."

He holds her hand for as long as possible as she scoots out of the truck.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos is great, comments are better. advice and thoughts appreciated.


End file.
